IU BASEBALL TALKS LOSS TO STANFORD

TRACY SMITH: Again, I think just if you look at kind of where we were sitting last night, we said, what a heck of a ballgame, and sometimes they go in your favor and sometimes they don't. We were on the other side of that tonight. But I thought, again, a couple outs, we left a couple balls up. They did what they were supposed to do. They made us pay for it. But other than that I thought it was a good ballgame and I like the way our guys competed and I like the way they played. Been around the game a long time, and there's good wins and there's tough losses. This, it's a loss. We've got our own destiny in our hands and looking forward to playing tomorrow. But in our minds, tough loss but a lot of credit to Stanford. I thought they battled hard, came into our place and beat us, and good job by them.

Q. If you would, you guys, again, you're scoring two?out runs, you had the nice lead going into the eighth inning. It's a shock to the system when you see a ball like that just, boom, kind of leave the yard. Did it almost seem like you were right there within your grasp to put it away? SAM TRAVIS: Going back, this is baseball. It's going to happen. I'm sure we've done that to plenty of teams this season in the years I've been here. You know, our pitcher has been getting it done all year. Sometimes they are going to get hit. We have got to be able to pick them up. You know, it's going to happen. Got to come back tomorrow and keep moving forward.

Q. From your vantage point, what did happen on the three?run homer, basically, and after a young guy like that gives up a home run, how do you kind of talk him through it? KYLE SCHWARBER: It wasn't a bad pitch, actually. The guy did a really good job of getting the barrel to the ball. You know, he kind of just made us pay for it. It's baseball. I mean, you'll see?? like you've seen me and Sam hit some pretty good pitches out. It happens. It's baseball. You know, Jake's going to bounce back and we are all going to bounce back tomorrow. We're going to be ready.

Q. Tomorrow, obviously a must?win situation, you just kind of touched upon it, but where is the confidence level in this team knowing that you do have the ability to beat Stanford and you will do that tomorrow? KYLE SCHWARBER: We are confident in ourselves right now. We are playing really good baseball. We had a little slip?up tonight and that happens. I still feel like we played good Indiana baseball. We've been hitting the ball solid, and we have been in quality at?bats and the pitchers are out there competing. No one is not out there competing. So we're going to be out there ready to go, and you know, play for our tournament life.

Q. There were a couple calls that you seemed to disagree with tonight. Was there ever a point where frustration crept into your approach, or was it easy to move past those? KYLE SCHWARBER: In the heat of the moment, there's frustration, but you've got to put those behind you. You saw me, might have had a little incident with the umpire down at first, and that's heat?of?the?moment stuff. But you put that behind you as the game goes on.

Q. Obviously for all the confidence you guys still have, do you feel like you missed an opportunity? You certainly had the pitching. KYLE SCHWARBER: On the mound and we had some missed opportunities at the plate. I had a missed opportunity today. It happens. It's baseball. That's all you can really say about it. Baseball is a fickle game, and you never know what's going to happen. Just live in the moment and we'll take the result.

Q. Have you decided yet who would start, or how will you make the pitching lineup? TRACY SMITH: We'll talk about that in the locker room after yards, and when we figure it out, we'll make it available.

Q. Four outs away from a super regional berth, what do you say to your team afterwards, and what do you say to them going into the game tomorrow just to get their mental game back? TRACY SMITH: I mean, I keep saying it are ?? the guys I thought did a really good job are ?? particularly Nat. That's the first time all year that we let a lead get away late, and it's unfortunate that it happened now. But I don't have to say too much these guys. One of our things is we're pretty even keel on that stuff. So I hope that you don't see too much back?slapping and crazy stuff when we win, and you're not going to see too much head hanging and kicking dirt when we lose. We're going to go take a shower, go eat, sleep, get up and come ready to play baseball. It's pretty simple.

Q. The decision to go with Jake in the eighth, did you feel at that point you needed a strikeout? What went into the decision to make the change? TRACY SMITH: Well, what I wanted to do was give up a three?run homer, yeah. He's done a great job for us all year. The guy did a tremendous?? Kyle had the best vantage point; if it wasn't a bad pitch and the guy did a good job?? that's what I always say. I think sometimes what gets lost in athletics is that the other team's trying, too. So for me tonight, you had two really?? I said it last night, you had two really good teams, two very similar teams, both going at it. Their guy got one up tonight in a crucial situation. But even at that point, I felt like if we could keep it at one, we still had a shot in the ninth with the top of the order coming up. But my biggest disappointment tonight was that we kind of let it extend there a little bit. But we still got the tying run to the plate. Jake Kelzer, let's face it; the guy hadn't given up a run in a long time, a long time. So I would do it again.

Q. I don't know how much you can answer this question not knowing yet who starts tomorrow, but where are you in terms of arms? Who is maybe not available tomorrow that you know of, or is it something where you go into a game like that, saying, I don't care how much you've worked, if we need you, we're out there? TRACY SMITH: Well, I mean, I would say DeNato?? I don't know. You're at your tournament life. So you kind of take a head count at the end and say: Who can give me an out, who can give me an inning, and go from there. We still have some quality guys, Brian Korte, No. 3 starter on the Big Ten season still available; Sully Stadler, who started some very important games for us in the middle of the week. So we feel like we're in pretty good shape.